Most of the well-known infrastructure monitoring tools out there are designed to give companies insight into how their hardware performs. Equinix Inc.’s newly introduced IBX SmartView platform, in contrast, focuses on the underlying operating conditions.

The subscription-based software enables organizations that host servers in its co-location facilities to keep an eye on the environment where their gear is running. IBX SmartView plugs into Equinix’s internal building management system to collect data from the local network, cooling equipment and more than a half-dozen other infrastructure components. The information is displayed in a graphical console that is part of the same web-based management portal through which customers manage the other aspects of their operations.

According to Equinix, the data from IBX SmartView makes it possible to quickly take action when a potential issue emerges. If the monitoring dashboard starts showing, say, a sudden increase in heat levels, then a company can move its workloads to another data center until the problem is resolved. This feature should be especially appealing to the banks, hosting providers and other firms that run their mission-critical applications in Equinix’s facilities.

Customers that place a particularly big emphasis on monitoring can go as far as having the provider install sensors in their deployments to provide a more in-depth view of operations. The aggregated data is displayed in IBX SmartView alongside the logs from Equinix’s building management system, which enables administrators to more easily catch localized issues that may not affect the rest of a facility.

The platform provides the ability to prioritize important information and can send out an alert when operational metrics exceeds certain limits. Rounding out the feature set is a historical analysis tool designed to help piece together the big picture. A company looking to evaluate infrastructure expenses, for instance, could examine power supply logs see how its energy usage has changed over time.

IBX SmartView should help Equinix stand out better amid the intense competition in the co-locations market. Data Center Knowledge noted that Digital Realty Trust Inc., IO Inc. and several of the provider’s other rivals have been offering monitoring software to their own customers for quite some time.

IBX SmartView is available in six regions on launch and will arrive to the other 34 metropolitan areas where Equinix operates further the down the road. The company has more than 145 data centers across the globe, which means that the rollout may take some time to complete.

Image: Equinix